19.02.2004

Around the web: All things to all people

After a long time in the pipeline, Respect has finally unleashed its website on the world. Was it worth the wait? Phil Hamilton takes a look

Compared to its forerunner (www.blairout.com), it is a marked improvement. This made its way onto the internet shortly after George Galloway’s expulsion from Labour, and was never going to set the world of web design alight. At just a single page, it was then the online presence for an unnamed ‘Unity Coalition’. Its content included details of the January 25 convention, and a list of unobjectionable campaigning issues. Other items consisted of a plea to vote our gorgeous friend Channel 4’s politician of the year for 2003, some contact details, and a note announcing the development of the movement “day by day”. Well, quite a bit has happened since its emergence, yet not a peep of it has appeared here. A small link to the new site could remedy this, but its absence suggests the site stands abandoned. Cyberspace archaeologists only need apply.

The Respect site proper is headed by a garish-looking logo. I could not help noting how washed out its colours were. The ‘s’ representing ‘socialism’ is pink rather than red, while the ‘r’ for ‘Respect’ itself is a dull grey. Of course, any relationship between the colour scheme and the limp populist politics of the Respect majority is entirely coincidental. The main field itself is split into a list of news items and a gaggle of fixed features. Beginning with ‘Motion for use in trade unions’, this is a pretty unexceptional framed resolution merely asking branches to note the existence of left alternatives to New Labour, and that these organisations should be invited to address branch meetings in future. The next item is an extract from the Evening Standard (February 11) predicting The Daily Telegraph’s defeat in court for its clumsy attempt at smearing Galloway. I expect all socialists outside the ranks of the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty will welcome this news.

Respect’s publicity material consists of just two downloads for the declarations and membership forms, though strangely “we would prefer you order them from the office, as the quality will be much better than photocopying,” claims the accompanying blurb. I am sure that the charges of £5 for doing so have nothing to do with it. Next along is an open letter to the RMT union expressing Respect’s solidarity. Again this is a pretty unexceptional piece, except for the claim that “Respect … has been formed specifically to give trade unionists an alternative political voice to New Labour”. I do not mean to quibble, but one of the key defences of Respect’s diluted platform was the need to represent the anti-war movement as a whole. But consistency is a bit of a bind when you are trying to be all things to all people.

Another telling feature is the list of Respect’s executive, tucked away on the ‘About’ page. To emphasise its ‘broadness’, the web team have been slightly economical with members’ affiliations. Thus Lindsey German wears only her Stop the War Coalition hat, Michael Lavalette his ‘Socialist Alliance councillor’ guise, and poor Alan Thornett comes in as ‘SA trade union officer’. Such political dishonesty does not bode well for an organisation opposed to Blairite lies and spin. The rest of the site is functional, and that is about it. However, including video and audio files was a nice touch, which is not used enough on left websites. Overall the site mirrors Respect itself. The limited and dull design hardly suggests a dynamic anti-establishment organisation. After all, the ‘r’ in Respect does not stand for radical.

A word of warning. This site should not be confused with the spoof located at www.respectcoalition.co.uk. Standing for “Recently Expelled Scottish Politician who Endorses Communist Tyranny”, and sub-titled “the lunacy coalition”, it effortlessly emulates the unimaginative layout of the Respect site proper. The coalition’s campaign to raise “£1 million for a million votes” has been twisted into “£1 million to free Saddam”. Its other pages send up the Respect declaration, and the softness of Galloway and the Socialist Workers Party for Arab nationalism and political islam. Admittedly these are easy targets, but the commentary here should be taken as a foretaste of the more serious grilling Respect will receive at the hands of the media, should it begin to pick up support.

The politics informing this spoof are of a nasty pro-war variety, shot through with elitist snobbery and downright prejudice. Therefore the space for a leftist satire on Respect remains open - perhaps something to occupy the AWL when they get fed up of denouncing Galloway in Solidarity.